Talk:Wikimedia Foundation/Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 research and planning/community review

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2030 research and planning
Project summary Community review Discuss Community review results Request For Comments --Should the Foundation call itself Wikipedia
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The different Wikimedia projects have very different norms, standards, and policies. Many things one might say about Wikipedia are not true of its sister projects. I understand that it would be useful to leverage the larger brand to more easily publicize the projects by sharing reputations, but it has the potential to cause serious damage to all of Wikimedia's projects, Wikipedia included. Being unable to ever simply say "everything on Wikipedia is X" without it being true for a dozen sister projects would make it harder to communicate certain things. Wikipedia refers to itself as just "Wikipedia". Would it have to continually say "except for 'Wikipedia projects' outside of Wikipedia, which don't work anything like this" in policies?

Wikimedia's other projects already have a recurring issue of people thinking that Wikipedia's norms and policies (and administration) are shared by its sister projects. Being to closely associated with Wikipedia in the public mind is difficult, and stands to get much worse if one can't quickly respond "we're not Wikipedia".

This is a serious issue. Is there any way to avoid people thinking that the projects are part of Wikipedia, if you call Wikimedia by the same name?

Other things: I take issue with the statement "There is little/no awareness of projects outside of Wikipedia".>25% of the general population being familiar with a project is quite a lot, in my view. (I'm also mildly uncomfortable with the idea of trying to struggle for "mindshare" in general. We don't need to push the projects into people's heads; they come to us when they need to.)

Regarding the renaming of Wikimedia Commons: I don't know whether or not that would be beneficial, but I really think that decision should be made exclusively by Commons itself. That is not a movement-wide issue and does not need to be decided by the board or the WMF. --Yair rand (talk) 04:57, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

In addition to the agreement of individual projects, at a minimum the overall decision should be supported by a supermajority in a referendum among all (past and current) active editors. The value of the brands was created by them. Nemo 08:21, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 Daniel Case (talk) 18:45, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 Please. make a referendum before you take such important and relevant decisions. Both on the name of the foundation itself and on Wikimedia Commons--Ferdi2005 _(Posta) 20:12, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 Bodhisattwa (talk) 21:41, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+11 — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:19, 3 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

On top of what highlighted above, I'm not happy in replacing Wikimedia for Wikipedia, because most of the "non-wiki-experienced" people already think that the Foundation and the national Chapters have a role in defining/controlling the content of Wikipedia articles. If we name the association "Wikipedia", we further enforce this bias.--Ysogo (talk) 20:22, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 Daniel Case (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

I see this proposal as a poor tentative to fix a long term communication issue. And I don't think it would solve anything. A real marketing campaign the promote the sisters' project would be a better use of donors' money. Regards, Yann (talk) 07:23, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Massive clarification issues as mentioned above. Wikipedia (the encyclopedia) would need a way to clarify it was talking about itself, and having to change our referral for a questionable group rebranding seems unwise and irritating Nosebagbear (talk) 23:00, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 to everything said above. I don't like this idea at all. Being able to differentiate between the encyclopedia (including its content, its community, its reputation etc.) and the foundation is hard enough today and would be even harder without the distinctive names. --Tkarcher (talk) 12:35, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

1. Support Support everything wrote by Yair rand here. I am very tired of the expression "small projects" when growth is higher in so much of them! Noé (talk) 10:52, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
2. Support Support everything said above. I add that 1. the -pedia part of Wikipedia comes from encyclopedia, and is not appropriate for other projects, this would lead to confusion. 2. the first name created is the most well known, this is quite normal ; this difference will decrease with time. 3. the name "Wikimedia" is not the name of a project directly visible by readers, readers don't need to know it. This simple fact impacts notoriety, changing its name would not change this fact. Lmaltier (talk) 20:59, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
3. I'm opposed to the proposal to use "Wikipedia" as the brand name for WMF's all projects. As explained above, the name "Wikipedia" came from encyclopedia. This is mismatch for other projects. My first awareness of WMF's projects was Wikipedia like many peoples. I still like editing Wikipedia article, and like other activity in other projects too such as making dictionary entries in Wiktionary. I don't like the idea that can wrongly impress people that the porpose of the Wiki projects other than Wikipedia is to only support the development of Wikipedia, a project to make an encyclepedia. If the brand name "Wikimedia" is need to be changed, it should be other name than "Wikipedia". --Yapparina (talk) 11:40, 7 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
4. I have to agree. There's some apprehension about this over at Wikinews. Many of us left Wikipedia because we wanted to contribute to Project Wiki in a different way. Would this just be a name change or would it actually effect the way we're expected to work? Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:46, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
5. Ditto. I'm doing a lot on Wikiversity. I often tell people that Wikiversity and Wikipedia are both projects of the Wikimedia Foundation: Almost anyone can change almost anything on either project. What says tends to be written from a neutral point of view, citing credible sources, while treating others with respect. The difference is that Wikipedia does not allow original research, and Wikiversity does.

I'd feel comfortable saying that Wikiversity and Wikipedia are both Wikimedia projects (short for "Wikimedia foundation projects"), but I would NOT feel comfortable saying that Wikiversity was a Wikipedia project. DavidMCEddy (talk) 01:37, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

As a counterpoint, I think that including the word 'Wikipedia' in other projects would reduce confusion. People are quite familiar that 'Google maps' is not a search engine, but is related to 'Google'. Similarly the publisher 'BioMed Central' published 'BMC Mechanical Engineering', which is clearly not dedicated to biological topics, but is an expansion of BMC's Open Access brand. I suspect that talking about e.g. 'Wikipedia Foundation' or 'Wikipedia commons' would be mostly understood that these are expansions of the original Wikipedia mission into additional areas. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) ^talk 00:50, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I respectfully disagree. These examples are wonderful, but I don't think the correspondence is close enough to justify calling Wikiversity a "Wikipedia project". DavidMCEddy (talk) 01:37, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

IMO: für nicht Englisch-Muttersprachler ist commons ein unverständliches Gebrabbel. Wikinews; okay verständlich, Wikibooks auch, Wikisource und Wiktionary schwerer aber kann man hinkriegen. Aber Commons? Wenn ich google frage sagt er mit Commons hieße deutsch commons; eher nicht. bing ist besser und sagt mir Lager - leo sagt erstmal Unterhaus, die bürgerlichen und irgendwie auch gemeingut - aber was soll das für einen Nicht-Wikipedianer bedeuten? Ein Lager sind auch wikisource und wikibooks. Gemeingut sind alle WM-Projekte. Ich weiß nicht ob es in der englisch-Muttersprachler-Welt (und außerhalb des WM-Universums) verständlich ist. Ich vermute mal nicht. ...Sicherlich ^Post 08:01, 26 February 2019 (UTC) oh guck; Wikimedia macht mal wieder eine Community-Befragung exklusive für englisch-sprecher. Warum? Arroganz? Unwissenheit? Überforderung? - wenn es Euch wirklich interessieren würde, wäre der umseitige Text in einige Sprachen übersetzt. Die Arbeit der Community bringt die Millionen zu Wikimedia; da sollten ein paar Dollar für Übersetzer abfallen.Reply

Es sollte absolut Übersetzungen in so viele Sprachen geben, wie es Projekte gibt, damit jeder an der Diskussion teilnehmen und eigene Ansichten äußern kann. Weil eine Person kein Englisch spricht, bedeutet dies, dass ihre Meinung weniger gültig ist. Es ist auch wichtig, dass jeder Name mit globaler Reichweite in eine möglichst gleiche Bedeutung übersetzt wird (entschuldigt sich für die Verwendung von Google Translate) -- Gnangarra (talk) 23:39, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

should: but the Foundation does not care. They are talking a lot about global but mean english speaking. Maybe they don't know the differenz 🤔 or its to hard to believe that most people out there are not english>2 ...Sicherlich ^Post 10:54, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

@Sicherlich: Englisch ist Lingua franca . Es ist einfacher in einer Sprache zu diskutieren, als in 200 verschiedenen. ;-) --Sinuhe20 (talk) 11:40, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

@User:Sinuhe20: diskutieren keine Frage. Wobei auch dabei im zweifel viel relevanter input verloren geht. Es geht mir aber vornehmlich um die Darstellung der Themen. Umseitiges Thema wird nichtmal in einer anderen Sprache angeboten. Also nicht-englisch-versteher weiß ich nichtmal das es etwas gibt. .... Wenn man global sein will ist die Sprache das eine, die kultur das andere. ... gerade beim thema branding sind die einflüsse Sicherlich relevant. Wenn man das ignoriert ist man halt nicht global sondern nur banal western. Eine Frage was man will. Die Foundation hat das Lippenbekenntnis "global" in wirklichkeit ist davon wenig realität ...Sicherlich ^Post 12:18, 27 February 2019 (UTC) man könnte sogar das diskussionsproblem lösen indem man die Chapter mehr einbindet. So kenne ich das von wahrhaften globalen organisationen Reply

@Sicherlich: (de/en) Das ist ein gutes Argument. Wenn wir die Marke Wikimedia entfernen, sollte Wikimedia Commons nur noch Wikimedia werden. Commons bedeutet Medien für Wikis. Man erkennt Commons nicht an. Wikimedia ist der beste Name für dieses Projekt. Vielleicht sollten wir einen Übergang von einem oder zwei Jahren haben, aber WikiMedia wäre der bekannteste Name für Commons.

(en) This is a very good point. If we remove Wikimedia brand, Wikimedia Commons should become just Wikimedia. Commons means media for wikis. People do not recognise Commons. Wikimedia is the best name for this project. Maybe we should have a transition of a year or two, but WikiMedia would be the most recognisable name for Commons — NickK (talk) 10:42, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

WikiMedia is a good idea! 👍 ...Sicherlich ^Post 10:54, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

I don't agree. A Wikimedia project shouldn't have a name that's nearly identical to the operator's name (the Wikimedia Foundation is often just called "Wikimedia"). @Sicherlich: For what it's worth... die beste Übersetzung von "Commons" in dem Sinne, in dem das Wort hier verwendet wird, wäre wohl Allmende/Allmend (in der Schweiz gibt es auch einen Verein "Digitale Allmend"). Aber das bringt uns natürlich in Bezug auf die Benennung des Projekts nicht weiter, bloss als Hinweis auf das Gemeinte. Gestumblindi (talk) 11:42, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Zitat: "Wenn wir die Marke Wikimedia entfernen" so if we change the namen of the foundation ...Sicherlich ^Post 12:19, 27 February 2019 (UTC) bzgl. Üersetzung: ja mir bekannt ;) - nur ich bin Insider wie alle hier. Was es braucht ist eine außenperspektive. Aber die werden wir wohl nicht kriegen. Wer auf meta diskutiert ist nichtmal "normaler" Wikipedianer sondern schon eher sorte "hardcore" und damit betriebsblind vom feinsten Reply

und eigentlich wollte ich gar nicht mehr meta diskutieren 😂 - viel zeit wenig bis kein nutzen. ...Sicherlich ^Post 12:27, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

@Sicherlich: Ja, zu den gelegentlich betriebsblinden "Hardcore-Wikipedianern" kann man mich wohl schon zählen... Nun, ich hatte das hier zu flüchtig gelesen. Klar, wenn Wikimedia nicht mehr Wikimedia heissen würde, könnte man den Namen schon als "frei" ansehen. Aber so ganz glücklich bin ich mit der Idee nach wie vor nicht. Es wäre immer noch der ehemalige und langjährige Name der Foundation sowie immer noch sehr nahe an Wikipedia und MediaWiki; ein etwas charaktistischerer, weniger verwechselbarer Name wäre doch besser. In dieser Hinsicht wäre ein Wechsel von Wikimedia Commons zu WikiMedia m.E. keine Verbesserung, eine mögliche Umbenennung der WMF hin oder her. Gestumblindi (talk) 19:46, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

If Wikimedia Commons is ever going to be renamed, the key RFC or proposal, should be on that project, not on another project where the Wikimedia Commons community does not hang out. --Fæ (talk) 13:59, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

yeah, an in more than just 1 language aso. WMF says they want to talk about brands so we do it. Nothing is going to happen here. Just smalltalk nobody really cares for. Not even the WMF ;) ...Sicherlich ^Post 14:40, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Hello,

Seeing this initiative makes me very happy; it relates to a number of problems I have experienced in the last 10 or more years when I presented Wikipedia "and related topics" to various audiences; to senior citizens, to "GLAMs", to pupils, to students, to political foundations, to historians, to linguists etc. etc. In general I found it a pity that it is necessary to talk much about the movement or organisations around Wikipedia, but it has to be. For example, if you ask people to contribute to Wikipedia, in the lessons you should inform them about the organisation they are doing volunteer work for, isn't it?

Please let me try to sum a number of problems I have encountered:

• "Wiki": Many people, especially in the Netherlands, don't know this word or they mistake it for an abbreviation for Wikipedia. I have always found it very sloppy how Wikimedians deal with our valuable brands. For example, when WMNL introduced "Wiki loves monuments", I strongly opposed this name in favour of using the very popular brand Wikipedia. On the other hand, I have been asked by more than one journalist why I, being the chair of WMNL, support the project Wikileaks (!).
• "Wikimedia": Sometimes I wonder why the general public has problems with understanding Wikipedia jargon. It seems that most people don't understand the term "Wikipedians", although this word is constructed the same way as many other similar words (object plus -an or -ian => person related to the object). "Wikimedia" seems to be especially confusing, just because of its similarity to "Wikipedia". Also, "-media" is not necessarily understood as an organisation rather than a collection of "media" (= content or content channels).
• "Wikimedia" standing alone: I would never recommend to use the single word "Wikimedia" talking to outsiders. As our branding is so confusing, it is the best to stick to the complete and official names. I presented WMNL always as Wikimedia Nederland or (most officially) "the association Wikimedia Nederland" and also tried to avoid the abbreviation when not properly introduced. Part of the problem is that people might not understand the relationship between WMF and WMNL. I remember a letter to WMNL addressed to "The Wikimedia Foundation Netherlands". When talking in one speech or paragraph about WMNL and Dutch Wikipedia, I intentionally spelled out "Wikipedia in Dutch language" and "the association Wikimedia Nederland" in order to make both sound as unsimilar as possible.
• Organisational relationship between Wikipedia - WMNL - WMF. I am affraid that this will always be a little bit difficult to explain, independent of the branding. Most people would naturally assume that WMNL is the Dutch "part" of WMF, and that WMNL is the owner or at least responsible for Dutch Wikipedia. You will always have to explain that. But of course, it helps to say "Wikimedia Nederland is the supporting association for Wikipedia", for example.
• "Projects" are part of the problem. We use this word in way too many contexts. I call the "sister projects" usually "Wikimedia wikis".

Many Wikimedians don't feel the necessity to think about our brands. They themselves are accustomed to the chaos. So I have tried to give them an impression how our branding might look to outsiders. In a presentation at Wikimania 2013, I showed them this text:

"The smash dash cash is very fond of this hash, smash trash. It is a smash based on dash smash, powered by creative fresh. Together with smash dash fresh and other smash dash hashes, it offers free dash.

Support the smash, join a smash hash, contribute to fresh! Smash dash Hong Kong has great hashes to make the smash dash universe with its smash dash hashes such as smash trash even greater."

What I have done was taking some typical Wikimedia morphemes and exchanging them with nonsense words: wiki = smash, media = dash etc. My original text was:

"The Wikimedia Foundation is very fond of this project, Wikipedia. It is a wiki based on MediaWiki, powered by Creative Commons. Together with Wikimedia Commons and other Wikimedia projects, it offers free media.

Support the wiki, join a Wiki:Project, contribute to Commons! Wikimedia Hong Kong has great projects to make the Wikimedia universe with its Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia even greater."

I asked the audience: If you think that nobody understands the first text, why do you believe anybody understands the second text? Ziko (talk) 11:24, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

@Ziko: I'm not sure that "Foundation" is really a word that nobody understands, but in any case, I doubt that this will be made easier by needing to append a clumsy explanation of the fact that smash trash the smash trash hash is not the same thing as smash trash in general, despite having the exact same name. (I agree about the overuse of the word "project".) --Yair rand (talk) 20:36, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Hello @Yair rand:, thanks for your comment. Where did I say that people don't understand the word "Foundation"? :-) Ziko (talk) 07:46, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

There are certainly ways to reduce confusion. It would help if WMF didn't intentionally muddle the waters (think when the WMF ED calls herself "Wikipedia Executive Director" in giant fundraising banners or signs herself katherine@wikipedia.org, and it's not hard to see how brands get diluted). Several people also said in the past that in hindsight the difference MediaWiki/Wikimedia is one we could have avoided. Nemo 21:17, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

@Ziko: I assumed that was what you were trying to imply by replacing the word with "cash", in the example text above? (If not, I may have also misunderstood the general point you were trying to make.) --Yair rand (talk) 01:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

True, got me. :-) But it was not only about words that are unknown in general. "Media" is a frequently used word but with different meanings etc. Ziko (talk) 09:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19258241 Spoiler: they don't like the name change proposal (nor do I). —Justin (koavf) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:44, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Huh, I had a look at the comments and had a different impression. --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green! 09:44, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Hi there, long time wikipedia reader here. It helped me immensely while growing up (thank you, from a sheltered child thrown into the real world). Since then, I've donated a handful of times. That said, this is a waste of money. This is not what I donated to support. Please plow my money into technical resources required for wikipedia operations and limit spending elsewhere. This move will create technical debt requiring time and money to fix, and not offer any better service to readers. I hope you continue to make wise choices and be a great example to the rest of the web, and the world. Thanks for providing a place for feedback. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.193.98.67 (talk) 21:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 Daniel Case (talk) 22:40, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 Libcub (talk) 22:45, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 --GodeNehler (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

The costs of rebranding would be largely done through existing staff capacity, I imagine. If you are concerned about how your donor dollars are spent, that is probably a valid concern, but one that is separate from this rebranding exercise. – Ajraddatz (talk) 01:45, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1: waste of staff time = waste of money. - Jmabel (talk) 02:47, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

-1: staff time is overhead dedicated to soft marketing issues like this one. this is what foundations do. the micromanaging of staff effort by community members would be amusing, if it weren't so divorced from reality. trivial waste compared to the great "search engine plans" [1] -- Slowking4 (talk) 14:00, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Yes, this strikes me as an immense exercise in asinine naval gazing so people steeped in marketing jargon can happily fill their own echo chamber with more marketing jargon. The renaming of Commons, apparently primarily so it conveniently fits on a sticker, and for no other real reason that I can tell, is a completely unjustifiably frivolous waste of community time, will require the rewriting of (lord only knows) thousands or tens of thousands of pages and templates in dozens of languages, and all so we can say "we did branding". That's very stupid, and is deeply disrespectful, since I presume the Foundation will not be the one fixing the mess, but will instead hand wave a change that no one wants and leave the community to do the actual work.

Furthermore, the fact that this page, dealing with whether we rename our largest multilingual project, is apparently only written in English, inspires zero confidence that the people behind this actually know or care what they're doing, or actually want substantive community input in the first place. GMG ^talk 14:12, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

I wonder how expensive the rebranding really would be. It depends how you do it. For example, you could immediately call for an extraordinary member convention to change the bylaws of your organisation. Or you wait for the next ordinary member convention, and you change the bylaws anyway for a general update. Ziko (talk) 15:23, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

I think considering a rebrand is a good use of time, not a waste of it. Branding can have a very real impact on public perceptions of a product, and the "Wikipedia" brand is much stronger than the "Wikimedia" brand; for example, it's very possible that this rebranding could invigorate other projects like Commons by increasing the public's association of them with Wikipedia. (I happen to dislike the name "Wikicommons", but that's another conversation.) I've basically given up trying to explain what "Wikimedia" is to my colleagues because they never understand it, I just say Wikipedia now. I think exploring a rebrand is good. --Deskana (talk) 16:33, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

We don't have a "product". We aren't trying to sell anything. Their numbers don't have jack to do with a "brand"; they have to do with which projects are most developed, and offer the most valuable resources. Of course the most developed projects have the most recognition, because they're better resources. The solution is to make better resources, and that doesn't have anything to do with branding. GMG ^talk 01:32, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

I don't agree. We do have a product, we're just not trying to sell it. I also don't think that making better resources and improving our branding are mutually exclusive either, as they can compliment each other. If this rebranding effort was the only thing the Wikimedia Foundation is doing, or if the effort had disproportionately large resourcing, then I'd have concerns, but neither of these things seem to be the case based on the information that's available. --Deskana (talk) 10:21, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1 Anyone who has ever made anything for public consumption learns the hard way that marketing is just as important as product quality. We're lucky enough to have the Wikipedia brand which is a billion dollar asset, it's a waste not to exploit it to the fullest extent. EdSaperia (talk) 15:34, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

This is one of my main concerns regarding this plan: That the reputation of Wikipedia is exploited and diluted by misusing it for countless other projects which do not deserve (and would otherwise never achieve) this recognition and reputation - with deceptive slogans like "a Wikipedia project" when it's actually a Wikimedia project. --Tkarcher (talk) 17:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

marketing is just as important as product quality That's utter nonsense. If suddenly the majority of files on Commons were copyright violations, then we don't want people to use it, because they're exposing themselves to litigation by reusing non-free content. If suddenly the majority of the content on Wikipedia were POV pushing, spam adverts, and factually incorrect information, then we don't want people to use it, because it would be actively diminishing public access to free knowledge.

We are not locked in a zero sum game for market share with other sources of knowledge. We don't "lose" if libraries surge in popularity; both us and libraries unequivocally win, because the goal of both is to increase public access to free knowledge. We don't want to shut down something like archive.org so that we can get their "customer base". We want to actively partner with them to accomplish shared goals.

The only way that this is actually is a zero sum competition for customer base and market share is if your primary goal is to increase donations, which I presume is why the Foundation is so apt to look at Wikipedia and see a valuation on a brand, rather than a valuation on a resource. GMG ^talk 11:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I doubt that Ed Saperia meant "marketing is just as important as product quality" quite as literally as you're taking him to have—I think he was saying that marketing is an important part of the equation, not that it is literally exactly as important, or that quality should be diminished in order to do marketing. I also don't agree that this is about donations—the Wikimedia Foundation could quite easily increase the amount that gets donated by running the banners for longer rather than going through a complex rebranding process. --Deskana (talk) 12:23, 9 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

And the banners themselves cause a wave of emails to OTRS every time they're up, which is another way the cost for the Foundation is externalized to volunteers that don't have to figure in to their bottom line.

If they want to increase the value of the brand, then they should increase the value of the resources we're making. Off the top of my head, crop tool on common has been broken for like three weeks now, while one guy tries to fix it on Github. Flickr2Commons has been broken forever. And cat-a-lot has a laundry list of requested features that people have been asking for over months or years. GMG ^talk 16:04, 9 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I agree with the IP OP: this is a waste of money. The WMF exclusively runs ads against the content that volunteers write, you run scary messages to imply Wikipedia will shut down if the coders aren't paid, and you dump money into bullshit projects like this. Look, SanFran: shut down your office, return Wikimedia to a service organization, and stop bothering those of us that write content. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Agreed. Unnecessary marketroid navel-gazing. Why do these people always take over and ruin everything in the end? Equinox (talk) 21:17, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Although I'm no great fan of marketing, if such brand awareness and strategy exercises improve awareness/understanding/engagement, then they are not a waste of money, rather it is the exact sort of thing a foundation is better positioned to achieve. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) ^talk 00:54, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Individual communities should have the freedom to decide whether to accept or reject this rebranding. The problems stated here might not be an universal problem for all communities. For example, academians where I live doesn't want to deal with Wikipedians because of the lack of reliability or the jargon translations of the contents but it was not difficult for us to attract them to Wikisource. Branding everything to Wikipedia will definitely hamper our effort to penetrate the circle. Bodhisattwa (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

This may also work at Wikinews. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:48, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I think this discussion is very help and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, when doing outreach as described by User:Ziko I also spend time identifying and explaining the connections between Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and MediaWiki. Most people honestly dont think the subtleties to be of any importance we are as a community really just Wikipedia. As a person who's been involved with the foundation of a chapter over 10 years ago and its on going work I know of the cost of using Wikimedia. Having been personally identified and attacked in national media as the head of Wikipedia in Australia I'm acutely aware of the importance of being able to separate an affiliate from the project, and the legal minefield we encounter. There's a lot of pitfalls in the ways in which we brand our activities, yes what ever the outcome there will be costs the community doesnt do enough to promote "Wikimedia" brand..

To many the Wikipedia identifier is more significant than we acknowledge, for many having your language, culture, knowledge identified as an independent Wikipedia is a validation which is important to oppressed, minority, and Indigenous communities especially the current future generations.

I'm all for exploring the potential of how to use and realise the opportunities that may exist, and how we can best support the efforts of contributors in the future. Gnangarra (talk) 00:33, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

I found the brand strategy presentation interesting reading, although, it probably raises a few questions. Perhaps need a few more options before jumping into decision making mode. That said, some of it I quite like ... 'set knowledge free' is a nice tagline and some of the PR ideas toward the end are interesting and generally it sends some good brand messages.

My initial position on all these interconnected issues would be the array of brands need simplifying. The different brands appear to be unconnected, and, unless you are familiar with the inner workings of wikimedia ecosystem, probably quite confusing. While some people probably like the disconnected nature of the projects, I tend to think a unified brand benefits all projects and can see that not levering the Wikipedia brand could represent a missed opportunity for long term awareness raising and thus sustainability. Although the appeal of using Wikipedia as the more prominent brand is understandable I'm not immediately convinced it's the best long term option. What if Wikipedia looses steam and Wikidata becomes the more recognised project 10 years from now?

A couple of thoughts:

• To help minimise confusing brands, as a starting point, has any thought been given to rebranding the foundation to avoid the MediaWiki / WikiMedia issue? If it has low brand recognition there is seemingly less at stake as a first step. Not entirely sure to what, although just WMF would probably be an improvement over the current state of play. Numerous organisations have shortened their names to an acronym that previously had a longer meanining. It needs a strong visual identity to match.
• What about visual identity overall? There current suite of project logos has no common reference point, which makes linking them all together based on a visual queues difficult, if not impossible. I'd see little point in undertaking branding initiatives along the lines of expository taglines without the visuals being right to support it.
• I'd like to see some options for how the UI can be enhanced to highlight other projects more prominently and bring unified branding together.
• Despite questioning the use of Wikipedia as one of the lead brands above, I'd see this as preferable to using the term 'Wiki' in isolation these days, given the potential for people to associate Wikimedia with other organisations / sites that use 'Wiki' in branding - some more problematic than others.
• Rebranding commons in some way to align with other project naming seems reasonable. It's a shame Wikimedia was used for an organisation given that commons hosts, well ... media content. Oh well.
• Making sure we're asking all the questions and then sequencing things seems really important here. To me, the first question would be should the foundation remain named as it is. Other questions, such as, what expository tagline to use across projects, would make more sense if considered following that.

Nickw25 (talk) 11:46, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Agreed. Say what you will about the rest of the branding document, the new slogan is good. It’s much catchier and explains more efficiently what Wikimedia does. I don’t remember off the top of my head what the current slogan is, something about every human being sharing in the sum of free knowledge? Basically, it’s bad, and this really helps to fix it. — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 01:27, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Hello, I am a big fan of a new branding; here just for fun an example how rebranding can go too for. Did you know that Amsterdam has a beach? Ziko (talk) 12:08, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Thanks for doing this diligent research and engaging the communities in this brand strategy process. I've read all the material. Consolidating the brands is a process long overdue. Please carry on. I fully support communicating to the outside world with a single recognizable brand, the Wikipedia wordmark and letter/puzzle pieces/globe logo. My concerns are about the URL's to be used for the projects and the naming scheme for the organizations/affiliates. The consultants are silent on both of them, or I have missed something.

• The Wikimedia Foundation host a whole range of "projects", which are websites. The consultants propose using Wikipedia, Wikicommons, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikispecies, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Mediawiki, and appending "- a Wikipedia project". (And Wikinews is missing in the strategy proposal pages 37-38, and also Wikimania is missing.) The websites are hosted on a domain with an URL. My preference would be to have them all as wikipedia.org, that is commons.wikipedia.org (in stead of commons.wikimedia.org), sources.wikipedia.org, books.wikipedia.org, data.wikipedia.org, species.wikipedia.org, words.wikipedia.org, quotes.wikipedia.org, university.wikipedia.org, voyage.wikipedia.org, mediawiki.wikipedia.org (and news.wikipedia.org). On the main page of these websites, and the footer of every page, these "projects" can retain the original name, appended with "a Wikipedia project". (and the original name of Commons is Commons and not Wikicommons). Another bold step would be to drop the Dot Org and buy wikipedia as TLD. And how to name Wikimania in the future? The World/Global Wikipedia Forum/Conference? Annual gathering of Wikipedia editors/contributors?
• The consultants imply to call the foundation the Wikipedia Foundation. I support that move. Some long time editors fear the foundation will exert more influence with the editing process and the editors on the projects. There is nothing in the research or in the proposals of the consultants that hints in that direction. It is a groundless fear. I support the project team is going to spend quite some time to listen what people think, feel, want, and desire. Editors should be heard in this process. As far as I can tell from the documents nothing is going to be changed to en.wikipedia.org, neither to one of the other language versions of Wikipedia.
• On the naming of affiliates and organizations. "The movement" consists not only of "user groups" (page 17 of the brand strategy proposal), but also 37 Wikimedia chapters (and one thorg), like Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimédia France and so on. Will the well established / in good standing "chapters" be allowed to "brand" themselves as Wikipedia Deutschland, Wikipédia France and so on? Or how come the chapters aren't mentioned in the brand strategy proposal?
• Set knowledge free. Yes, that is what we do! Hats off. Thanks, that is clear and concise. With a clear call to action. And let us get rid of "anyone can edit". In theory anyone can, in practice not. "Anyone can edit" as tag line is confusing people, says the brand research. Wikipedia has a peer review process, an open, continuous peer review process. Frame the openness as a process for quality assurance, which builds on the strength of the communities, the biggest asset in the movement. Ultimately, the value of the Wikipedia brand is (for over 90%) the result of the collaborative effort of the volunteer editors.

Looking forward to have a nice dialogue with the project team at Wikimania Stockholm in August 2019. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 14:52, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

See my comment above. — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 01:28, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

This seems similar in some sense to the Alphabet branding. I suspect you would get a lot of puzzled looks if you asked "what company owns the company Google?" --Izno (talk) 15:17, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Hi, I have a question with regards to "Therefore, we will calculate the ratio of informed to opposed: a measure of the number of people that explicitly oppose the proposal (ideally explaining why the current system works for them/their community) over the number of people who have been informed about the proposal.": How do you want to inform people? By using banners, massmessages, automized talk page or wikimail notifications, hundreds of thousands up to millions of accounts could easily be informed. A very high number would probably not even notice that they have been informed. In short: How will you calculate your ratio? Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 16:14, 27 February 2019 (UTC) (CentralNotice administrator, MassMessage sender, author of mass-mail and mass-talkpage-tools)Reply

@User:DerHexer I've added some more detail in the FAQ section of the project summary about outreach efforts to share this proposal for review. Let me know what you think -- ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 00:33, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Comment as an observer, not part of the WMF... It's not that hard, and known by anyone that has studied Communications or Marketing & Advertising. Passively sending is not evidence of communication and would be a meaningless statistic. To assess how many people have understood a message, means that there must be a positive acknowledgement or reply, even if just a button press to say, "I have read this". --Fæ (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

even such actions dont necessarily reflect that the person has understood the message. The best we can hope for is an open discussion with as many informed people as possible participating so that it heard above the noise. Gnangarra (talk) 02:23, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

By mentioning Wikipedia in the rebranding document, I assume, it is referred to English Wikipedia or other European language Wikipedias, because this is a fact that the percentage of people we are talking about, are not aware about some Indian language Wikipedia, like Bengali or Kannada or Malayalam. Then, why should Bengali Wikisource would like to put a tag of Wikipedia as that wont increase the project's visibility at all. Sometimes, the sister projects have far better quality content than their Wikipedia counterpart, which may be full of machine translated incomprehensible jargon or full of one-liner stubs. Are we considering that, tagging these projects with Wikipedia actually will decrease the popularity of those sister projects? -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 09:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

The affiliates are not responsible for the contents in Wikipedia. Like, if some editor writes a controversial content about some politician in India or upload a map which is not allowed by government to share legally, Wikimedia India bears no responsibility for that. They may face some legal threat or other threats, but now that can be explained in the court of law. But when you tag Wikipedia in the names of the affiliates, the threats will directly come to the affiliates, as the affiliates will find very hard to explain in public or in court as the name of Wikipedia is embedded with them. Is it worth to face that risk? Will WMF legal provide support everytime when needed to these affiliates and their members from prosecution. -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 09:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

That's an important question, I think. As far as I know, chapters such as Wikimedia Germany, Switzerland etc. have already quite a hard time always explaining to media and complainants that they're not responsible for Wikipedia's content and don't have the power to make changes to it. If the Wikimedia Foundation's name would be changed to something like Wikipedia Foundation, I assume it would be the logical thing to also rename the chapters to Wikipedia Germany etc. But the public perception of an organization called Wikipedia Germany would be that of "Germany's organization responsible for Wikipedia" - currently, the fact that the WMF and the Wikimedia chapters don't share their name with the project helps in explaining the difference. Gestumblindi (talk) 12:16, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Yes. We have this problem anyway, independent of the branding. But this must be taken into consideration somehow. Ziko (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

I think, this will be a question, every country, every chapter, must decide for themself. There will be not the same right answer for all. Marcus Cyron (talk) 17:25, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Raising this issue as well. Speaking from a country without rule of law and where Wikipedia have been blocked by the government a few weeks ago, establish the difference between Wikipedia and Wikimedia is crucial for our work, and if these differences aren't crystal clear (I can't see that happening with a change of name), we could not only been facing legal threats, but a more dangerous environment for our volunteers. This is not an easy matter and would like to take it in consideration to the community. --Oscar_. (talk) 15:52, 4 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Happens not that often, but I'm sharing an opinion with the WMF. I would go a step futher. All projects should be directly branded as Wikipedia projects, not starting doing again half things:

• Wikipedia Commons
• Wikipedia Data
• Wikipedia Books
• Wikipedia Wiktionary
• Wikipedia Source
• Wikipedia University
• Wikipedia Voyage
• Wikipedia Quote
• Wikipedia News (OK, I would end this project, we don't do journalism)
• Wikipedia Species (I also would end this problematic project)
• Meta Wikipedia
• Outreach Wikipedia (Meta Wikis with "Wikipedia" as second part of the name).

And I would set not two, but three major projcts:

• Wikipedia (with Voyage, Books, University and maybe News)
• Wikipedia Commons (with Source)
• Wikipedia Data (with Dictionary, Quote and Species)

-- Marcus Cyron (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2019 (UTC) Reply

Interesting, a rebranding and a reshuffle of the content? I wondered how to call Wikipedia after the rebranding, Wikipedia encyclopedia? Wikipedia Classis? --Ziko (talk) 06:45, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

For the projects there will be noch change. Just a sorting in the brand structure. Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:47, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

From bad to worse! This section should be entitled "How to kill the identity of small projects and make them feel inferior, making users disinterested and pushing them to contribute to the father project because others are useless". As administrator of Wikinews in Italian, I personally feel exactly like that, several times have proposed the closure for its small size, all this would only worsen the situation.--Ferdi2005 _(Posta) 20:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

This section is for discussions in other languages than English.

<hier Kommentar einfügen>

Starting from the point that not only the name "wikipedia" is well known but also its motto ("the free Encyclopedia" and/or the other language translations) is well know, I wonder whether the real challenge for us is not to change the name of Wikimedia, but to give more appealing to Wikimedia and its mission, because, end of the story, the motto should summarize in an evocative way the mission. Honestly I believe that "meta-wiki" is obscure to most of readers; additionally, it can not be translated to any other languages to reach also who has not a knowledge of classic studies to understand what "meta" means. My suggestion is to use something more direct, and that can be translated in any language. The first thing I thought (but I'm not the best person to invent mottos) is something like "The soil where wiki-worlds grow": it also helps to introduce the concept that Wikpedia is not alone but there is something else. If Wikimedia site has a better moto, than also the mission of WMF and local chapters can be more easily "sold" to external people. As said before feel free to suggest your preferred motto.--Ysogo (talk) 05:41, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I am afraid that a replacement of the brand "Wikimedia" by "Wikipedia" could result in an even more encyclopedia-centric direction within our movement. We do already now have (and always had) the situation that Wikipedia is clearly the dominating part of the movement, and there are lots of (Wikipedia) editors who think that Wikimedia is all about writing the free encyclopedia Wikipedia, with a few auxiliary projects whose sole purpose is to support the free encyclopedia. This point of view is often supported by the notion that Wikipedia has by far the largest readership among Wikimedia projects, thus almost all donation money is coming via Wikipedia donation campaigns. Yet, if one compares Wikimedia’s and Wikipedia’s mottos, which are "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." vs. "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.", it is clear that Wikimedia’s scope is much broader than Wikipedia’s. So, if brand-wise the movement was kind of narrowed to the encyclopedia brand, what would be done to ensure that motto-wise we keep the broader scope alive particularly within the movement and community? —MisterSynergy (talk) 07:16, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

If we approve this crazy proposal, sister projects won’t be sister projects anymorr, they will be secondary project.--Ferdi2005 _(Posta) 21:02, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I don't see this. I see it as a real big chance for sister projects, to participate much more from the well known name "Wikipedia".Even actually all sister project are the minor sisters of Wikipedia in the eyes of the public. So nothing will change. Marcus Cyron (talk) 14:18, 2 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Our goal is to reduce this perception, not to increase it!--Ferdi2005 _(Posta) 20:41, 4 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

+1, MisterSynergy. As I commented on the Telegram group about Wikidata, an encyclopedia is no longer the most efficient way to satisfy many information needs and in the future it will not be either; suggesting that our mission is just to offer an encyclopedia is like sentencing our movement to death, or at least to lose popularity in the future. It's reasonable that an outsourced study on branding (where they have no special knowledge about our movement) concludes that Wikipedia is clearly a better known brand than Wikimedia, but the WMF should see the big picture and realize that's not the only relevant fact. I'm worried for the lack of vision, for me this is just going back in time. --abi án 12:49, 6 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

No, you don't need to waste a bunch of money on "brand consultants" (hmmm... another phrase to add to my spam filters?) to tell you that. And no, the solution isn't to rename everything Wikipedia X. However:

• Wikipedia is, first and foremost, an encyclopedia. Having "brands" like "Wikipedia Travel" explicitly dilutes that and help confuse the clueless hoards who already struggle to understand the concept of an encyclopedia. Travel guide content will never be acceptable on Wikipedia.
• Renaming Wikivoyage etc. to Wikipedia X reinforces the idea that these projects are secondary/afterthoughts/also-rans/distractions. They should be first class citizens.
• I find, as an admin, being unable to tell the difference between "wiki" and "Wikipedia" is highly correlated with a failure to understand the purpose of the project.
• The foundation should be renamed, but not to the Wikipedia Foundation. This will lead to the clueless hoards implying the foundation has a greater control over Wikipedia content than they already do, that Wikipedia is the only thing they do and, of course forking out more donations. The latter, of course, is the desired result of this rebranding exercise instigated and "researched" by those who know absolutely nothing about our projects. That fixing the confusion between "wiki", "Wikipedia", "Wikimedia (movement)", "Wikimedia $COUNTRY", "Wikimedia Commons", "Wikimedia Foundation" and "MediaWiki" is a secondary goal, when it should be the only purpose of this rebranding, is all you need to know.
• Rename MediaWiki to remove it from the set of things can be confused. The suffix "wiki" can stay, but "media" must go.
• Consider naming the smaller projects $NEW_FOUNDATION_NAME Travel, $NEW_FOUNDATION_NAME Library, etc. Hell, I could get behind $NEW_FOUNDATION_NAME Encyclopedia to finally address the confusion between "wiki" and "Wikipedia" for good.
• Wikimedia sounds like a good name for Commons, but there will be many a volunteer who has to reprogram themselves to realise that. MER-C (talk) 20:25, 2 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• The number of people writing to OTRS who already think that Wikipedia is written by a newsroom and I am employee is already too dang big. It will be impossible to explain to someone's angry lawyer that the "Wikipedia Foundation" is not Wikipedia, doesn't actually write Wikipedia, and no, you cannot contact my boss at the "Wikipedia Foundation" to have your official bio updated and complain about my performance and your level of customer satisfaction. GMG ^talk 00:06, 4 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Well, how to call the organizations in order to avoid or minimize confusion. Ziko (talk) 12:09, 8 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

There is more to branding than names! Wikipedia has moved on since "anyone can edit": it is no longer the case that any contribution made in good faith is a good thing. What is now the case is that every budding entrepreneur, software writer, artist or entertainer, every company, every group or school in the world expects to have "their page" all over the internet, and major language Wikipedias have become a highly valued place to have "your page".

Consequences: a flood of new "articles" having to be patrolled; existing articles about persons or organisations getting picked off by the conflict-of-interest editors or their hirelings, and overwritten with advertising or whitewashing; in both cases repetitive arguments following reversions, declines or deletions. Now volunteer maintainers of the project are unlikely to want to spend their lives coping with this, when there has been very little effort made to update public understanding of what is and is not allowed here. As they give up, the encyclopedias deteriorate.

Requirements: rethinking of publicity at all levels, directed at refining the way the public understands "anyone can edit". This supported by clear messaging at the point of registering an account. Those who do proceed to try to promote themselves cannot then say "but we weren't told..." Bhunacat10 (talk) 18:17, 3 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

the drift from the mission is a bad thing; we need to change the culture to lower barriers to entry while making it easier to make a quality edit. warning COI editors in the marketing would be a mistake, they know or should know. Slowking4 (talk) 13:18, 4 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

According to the Wikipedia article about Wikipedia in the (still) largest language edition, it is a "multilingual, web-based, free encyclopedia based on a model of openly editable and viewable content". I consider myself proud to be part of this project, and this is probably why I would not like anyone to act using the term "Wikipedia" officially, who is not part of this project within the frame of this definition. And, with all due respect, I do not see WMF acting strictly within a target defined by this quotation, and I do not see them going there. I, however, see them wanting to take advantage of the positive vibes "Wikipedia" has. Acknowledging all the arguments already presented here, I do not want this to happen. → «« Man77 »» ^[de] 18:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I see your point. So, for example, it would not be appropriate if an organization tries to speak in the name of the "Wikipedia community". Remember that the "Strategic Direction" uses the word "community" for literally everything and everybody in the world. Ziko (talk) 12:08, 8 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

GMG made such a good point that I felt it warranted its own section.

OTRS has a staggering number of individuals contact us thinking that we are a central editing body for Wikipedia. Convincing them that the Wikimedia Foundation does not make editing decisions can already be tricky. If they are re-named something like the "Wikipedia Foundation" that will become far worse.

Now OTRS suffering would not be enough to turn down an idea, but I'd imagine any cross-body group is going to run into these problems, as well as the other projects having to spend even more time explaining they can't solve an individual's Wikipedia question.

Nosebagbear (talk) 09:25, 6 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I can't undestand something on the slides: the mainlines showed are exactly the idea that community has? It's very difficult to me to say that I think in a few words, so, I will focus in junst only two things.

1st, in the slides in English, the #61 has the word 'create' in two lines very different. One, to 'create the wikipedia', for me, is ok. And other, to 'create knowledge'... and so said, for me, this clash with one of the five pillars: an Encyclopedia does not have the purpose of create knoledge, but disseminating knowledge.

2nd, I support that Wikimedia help to create and to disseminate knowledge, but making Wikipedia a brand to all projects signify to reduce the perception of signification and independence of the other projects, lost of sense of the actual perception of Wikipedia and more confussion in the future perception of people of all the set.

In other level, I think that to put the brand as basic step to the future reduce the vision to further technologic enhancements, connection between projects and wider opening of ideas to redesign the future of all the projects (the whole set, individualized project to project or to stablish new ones). --Agremon (talk) 14:13, 6 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Hello,

To be more positive, maybe we could brainstorm some alternative names for the Wikimedia Foundation? Add your ideas! Noé (talk) 13:12, 7 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• WikiGround
• Wiked
• Wikif
• MediaWiki
• WikiFoundation
• ...

Wikinews is not Wikipedia News. The differences are in that

• It allows original research in the form of original reporting,
• The assumption of good faith is replaced with 'never assume' for the sake of critical thinking,
• Many language editions require peer review for publication,
• Events which occurred over 3 days ago are not publishable (wikipedia home page often has 'news' items from 4 or 5 or more days ago)

To whom do I write about this for this proposal to make an impact? Do we need consensus on the project to prevent the rename from occurring?

In the case the rename proceeds, are we allowed to keep the old brand name still?

Here is a relevant discussion: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/miscellaneous#WMF_proposes_rebranding_Wikinews_into_Wikipedia_News

--Gryllida 09:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Even if this turns out to be only a name-change, accredited Wikinews reporters have been contacting and interviewing sources under the "Wikinews" name for years. Even when people haven't heard of Wikinews, "Wikipedia News" will leave them with the impression of Wikipedia's reputation, and it's a much larger project with a different set of accomplishments and problems. I think Wikinews might be better off if, like modern women of the past fifty years, it kept its own name. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:31, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I concur with above concerns that turning everything into "Wikipedi this" and "Wikipedia that" will dilute the this is an encyclopedia message and community and trust. Too few MWF projects have anything like WP's devotion to sourceable veracity.

However, I agree with the "use Wiki as a prefix" idea; we don't need long-winded names like "Wikimedia Commons".

I also agree that WikiMedia and MediaWiki are confusing names. The software engine should get a completely different name (maybe something more descriptive, like "Universal Wiki Engine" or whatever). WMF itself, maybe "Wiki[something else that starts with M but doesn't rhyme with pedia] Foundation", so it can keep its acronym. PS: I don't think the corporate image consultants are worth the money they're paid. Have they not noticed that major corporations do not name themselves after their "flagship" products? Microsoft isn't Windows Inc. Doing so can cause problems later; imagine if Sony had rebranded itself "Walkman Ltd". Consider also the problem experienced by Atari and later by Nintendo; their game consoles were not their only products but those products became synonymous with the company names, which suppressed their ability to diversify. That said, I do not think that MWF should be thinking of itself in terms similar to a software company with a product and userbase in the first place, but needs to shift gears (replace half the board if you have to) and start behaving like a globally important NGO/nonprofit with a public-interest mission and a constituency that consists of the virtually the entire public. I've addressed this a little bit at en:wp:User:SMcCandlish/Wikipedia's self-management and future, among other places.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 15:00, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Umm... correct link: w:en:User:SMcCandlish/Wikipedia's self-management and future. George Ho (talk) 20:35, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

If we're rebranding Wikimedia Commons as Wikicommons ... maybe the WMF should become Wikifoundation? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:46, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

@ZMcCune (WMF), Elitre (WMF), ELappen (WMF), and Quiddity (WMF):

I appreciate the wish to make readers more familiar with sister projects. However the sister projects are not an encyclopedia. They are governed by different principles and goals. In my opinion branding them as a part of Wikipedia would create confusion, and this confusion would continue to exist - for each newcomer - years after the brand change is made. How would you suggest to address this? Gryllida 22:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Opened discussions in English:

• Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikisource, Wikivoyage, Wikispecies, Wikiquote. Gryllida 23:09, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Support Support The proposed rebranding would create confusion with other projects. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:57, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• I only see one way to eliminate this confusion. If the foundation is rebranded as Wikipedia, then the encyclopedia project needs to be rebranded as something else. If they rebranded the projects like "Wikipedia Encyclopedia", "Wikipedia Library", "Wikipedia Database", "Wikipedia Dictionary", for example, it could work out okay. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:21, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

  Thanks! Suppose we have 'WIKISOMETHINGELSE Dictionary', as noted in the 'Contest?' section below, would 'Wikipedia' be more confusing than the other available choices ('Wikimania', 'Wikiworld', 'Wikiweb')? If so, would the confusion be minor or major?

  How would you consider leaving the project name intact via 'SOMETHINGELSE Wiktionary', versus 'WIKISOMETHINGELSE Dictionary'. Which one do you think would be less confusing in terms of consistency with the past and in terms of confusion? Gryllida 00:40, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

  @Gryllida: I do not think "Wikipedia Dictionary" is more confusing than "Wikimedia Dictionary" or "Wikiworld Dictionary". I think that "Wikipedia Encyclopedia" is only slightly more confusing than "Wikimedia Encyclopedia" or "Wikiworld Encyclopedia", but not enough to matter, and the confusion would not last. If project names are kept intact, then the foundation name would have to be distinct enough to not sound stupid. "WMF Wikipedia" could work; "Wikiworld Wikipedia" sounds dumb; "Wikipedia Wikipedia" is ludicrous. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:47, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

  Thanks! I guess one concern here is whether having two words in the name of the project is good or bad. The Wikimedia Foundation wants to keep the names of the projects as is, and only change the name of the umbrella. There would be 'Wiktionary - a Wikipedia project', for instance. Gryllida 02:33, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Opened discussions in Russian: versity ktionary quote books voyage source. Gryllida 02:32, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

What are the alternatives to using 'Wikipedia' brand name and 'Wikimedia'? Is there any third name that could be considered? Gryllida 22:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I'm asking around about Wikimania' as an alternative brand, at the same discussion threads as linked above about the confusion. I understand that it is the name of a conference, but perhaps it is catchy and people recognise it easier than 'Wikipedia' - I am just checking whether contributors are OK with it in case Wikimedia considers it an acceptable alternative. --Gryllida 01:25, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I'd say that Wikimania would be worse than Wikimedia, as it has less brand recognition and less favourable connotations. Whilst '-media' has connotations of information content channels, '-mania' has connotations of hyperactivity or madness. I'm not even really a fan of it as the main conference name, but perhaps I'm no fun! I find it makes it hard to get people to take it seriously as a significant conference, as opposed to a casual, whacky meetup. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) ^talk 05:36, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Agreed. Unless we want to promote Wikipedia as tHaT wAcKy EnCyClOpEdIa PrOjEcT, then I don't really see Wikimania as a sensible branding choice. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:26, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

What about making it more clear by adjusting the layout of the page? Currently it only shows the logo of the current project (ie Wiktionary) without any showing of the logo of Wikimedia. Could somehow both logos be displayed? --Gryllida 22:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Yes this is a far better idea than telling users that sister projects are Wikipedia-but-actually-not —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:31, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

"Providing clearer connections to the sister projects from Wikipedia to drive increased awareness, usage and contributions to all movement projects."

Could you please clarify what this means? How do you plan to make these connections more clear? I think this is a wonderful idea, however it would be great to know the specifics. --Gryllida 23:22, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I believe that the Discovery project added sister projects results to the search, is this still on? For instance check

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=Kukaryamba - Wikipedia
• https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=Kukaryamba - Wiktionary

--Gryllida 23:22, 12 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Um... How about using "K" instead?

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=K&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=1 - Wikipedia
• https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?search=K&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=1 - Wiktionary

So far, I don't see the sister project snippets at Wiktionary. This phab task is still ongoing. George Ho (talk) 02:43, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Thanks! This might be intentional since the word I was looking for is rare, perhaps it does not show anything if there is zero results.

I'm a bit worried that in the Wikipedia version, wiktionary wikisource wikiquote wikivoyage wikibooks are present, but wikiversity and wikinews are missing. Does the Wikimedia Foundation intend to address this issue as a part of the rebranding strategy? I understand that the volunteers at Wikipedia are responsible for its content, but in my opinion this is not content. Gryllida 03:27, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

The en-WP community agreed to suppress results of Wikinews and Wikiversity; link: w:en:Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 135#RfC: sister projects in search results.

Nonetheless, you can see all snippets at non-English sites, like this one: https://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=K&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=1 - Wikipedia (es). (Task: phab:T163463.) Spanish Wiktionary still doesn't have sister project snippets: https://es.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?search=K&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=1 - Wiktionary (es). --George Ho (talk) 04:05, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Hi. There was a (now archived) discussion about this proposal on Commons. PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:09, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Thank you for sharing it. Interesting to know that 'Wikimedia' was considered there a good new name for the entire project. :-) Gryllida 01:26, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

I have to say no to more closely associating Wikivoyage with Wikipedia. In March, 2014, the Wikivoyage administrator community decided to abandon the recommendations of their CC/SA license, and stop properly attributing the wiki editors who created the majority of the content on the Wikivoyage site. That edit resides here: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Creditssource-credits#Was_anyone_aware_of_this,_because_I_sure_wasn't Of further interest is that the start of the cascade of poor decisions leading to Wikivoyage abandoning their license started with Wikivoyage user "Doc" James https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/User:Doc_James You may recognize James Heilman better from his Wikipedia user page (he uses an alias on Wikivoyage): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Heilman#Tenure_on_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees James Heilman not only removes the attribution from all pages on Wikivoyage per the above edit, he also happens to be a member of the Wikipedia Foundatuon Board of Trustees (he was re-elected after he ran again following his removal from the Board in 2015). Wikivoyage has been a rogue wiki since day one, and its admins have little regard for the principles that Wikipedia was founded on. In my opinion it should not be a Wikipedia project at all, let alone bear the Wikipedia moniker. SpendrupsForAll (talk) 01:24, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Thank you for this.

1) With CC-SA attribution to individual contributors is not required, the content is attributed to Wikivoyage. Is this correct?

2) If without attribution, what licence is currently used at Wikivoyage?

3) Since you disagree with this decision. What are the benefits of using attribution and who would you like to attribute the content to? Gryllida 01:30, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Copied from wikt:Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2019/March#You may now become 'Wiktionary — A Wikipedia project'.

Assuming that the purpose of having a unified brand is facilitating publicity for all projects, a major consideration is how evocative and easy-to-remember the brand name is. While currently Wikipedia is the best-known name associated with Wikimedia, with the right approach any well-chosen name can quickly become widely recognized; it is just a matter of generating publicity. I agree that Wikimedia was an unfortunate choice: not appropriately evocative ("media" is not a unifying focus), and easily confused with Wikipedia or MetaWiki. Replacing it by Wikipedia will raise the confusion to an unmanageable level. Wikimania may seem cool but has bad connotations that are just too strong and is irresistably inviting of the derived term Wikimaniac, which is fine for internal use, but we would not be able to keep its use contained. Why does the WMF not open up a contest for a unified brand name in the style of WikiXXX for some suitable term replacing XXX, with (after a preliminary selection producing a shortlist) the user community selecting the winner. My submission: Wikiworld. That certainly covers everything and has a nice alliteration. (I know there used to be a WikiWorld , but that has now been defunct for over 10 years.) --Lambiam 14:52, 13 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Support Support the idea of having a brainstorm session here, now. Gryllida 00:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Proposed by WMF

• Oppose Oppose May or may not cause confusion, with some newcomers applying Wikipedia policies to projects and notability guidelines where they do not apply; see discussions above. Gryllida 00:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Oppose Oppose unless Wikipedia itself is also rebranded so as not to be confused with the foundation and the sister projects. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:50, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Proposed by Gryllida.

• Support Support Name of the conference; some people may find it less confusing than branding as 'Wikipedia'; some people find it a bad reference to 'Wikimaniac' (something I personally disagree with... may or may not be important). Gryllida 00:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Sounds unprofessional/amateurish to me. Equinox (talk) 01:23, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Oppose Oppose per Equinox. SelfieCity (talk) 02:19, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Proposed by Lambiam above.

• Neutral Neutral In my personal opinion it is a nice broad name, perhaps a bit too difficult to spell and to pronounce. --Gryllida 00:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Sounds too much like a theme park or something, not IMO serious-sounding enough. Equinox (talk) 01:23, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Oppose Oppose Doesn't have a strong enough connection to any name Wikimedia/Wikipedia has used for the past 10+ years. SelfieCity (talk) 02:21, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Proposed by Gryllida

• Neutral Neutral Perhaps easier to spell and to write. In my opinion it is an average name, not much better than 'Wikimedia'. Gryllida 00:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Sounds somehow very dated to me, probably because the first ever wiki was "WikiWikiWeb". Equinox (talk) 01:23, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Current name.

• Support Support This name has a logo too: Wikimedia Community Logo. This is in my opinion a good brand, but not shown to readers at the moment. In my opinion showing it to readers more clearly may resolve many problems here. --Gryllida 00:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Support Support It's my favorite name of the ones proposed here, but I don't know how much of that is status quo bias. One downside might be thinking that Wikimedia = Commons, because Commons is the project that hosts our image, audio, and video content. (I've encountered this confusion in the wild.) However, I don't think that's a major problem. PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:34, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Support Support Wikimedia is an okay brand, it just doesn't have a lot of recognition. If it were more prominently used on the projects it would have better recognition, and there wouldn't be a problem. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:53, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply
• Support Support Even if it had never been used and we'd just made it up, imho it'd be a good choice. Simple, accurate, mnemonic. --Pi zero (talk) 02:43, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Hawaiian 'wikiwiki' (quick)

• + 'honua' (world)
• + 'hui pū' (together)
• + 'hoʻoponopono' (edit)
• + 'hana' (create)

Seems 'Wikihana' is the easiest to write and remember, 'quickly create'. Gryllida 01:05, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Support Support as proposer. Gryllida 01:05, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Sometimes companies rebrand themselves using their initials, maybe it would work here? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:49, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Just as Wikimedia Commons becomes Wikicommons, so Wikimedia Foundation becomes Wikifoundation. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:58, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Support Support A nice-sounding name that makes clear the not-for-profit purpose of the Foundation. SelfieCity (talk) 02:22, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Include {{sisterprojects}} in the welcome message. Gryllida 01:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Support Support. Gryllida 01:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Include a one-line version of {{sisterprojects}} in the footer. Gryllida 01:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Support Support. Gryllida 01:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Include sister projects in the search box (Special:Search) more prominently as tabs instead of the sidebar. Check whether this is effective. Gryllida 01:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Support Support. Gryllida 01:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Include sister projects in the search box (the little one that we see before visiting Special:Search). Gryllida 01:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

• Support Support. Gryllida 01:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

Ensure sister projects are not hidden in any lists, and the list is all-inclusive at all times.

• Support Support. Gryllida 01:55, 14 March 2019 (UTC) Reply

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